November 9, 2014

Amrullah Saleh is a politician in Afghanistan who served as head of the National Directorate of Security from 2004 until his resignation in 2010. Prior to that he was a member of Ahmad Shah Massoud's Northern Alliance.
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According to Ambassador Hank Crumpton from the CIA, who led the Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001, Saleh possessed "good technical skills and emerging leadership traits". Ambassador Crumpton also writes in his recent book that he found Saleh to be “young, brilliant, honest, and devoted to a free Afghanistan"

The resignation of Saleh and Atmar came amidst heavy disagreement between Hamid Karzai and Amrullah Saleh on how to proceed against the Taliban. Daoud Sultanzoi, a member of the Afghan parliament, said, he had observed that disagreement between Karzai on the one side and cabinet members such as Saleh and Atmar on the other side had been going on for a while. Saleh publicly blamed Pakistan for its support to the Taliban and other extremist groups and said talks with the Taliban should take place but not at the cost of democratic structures. Meanwhile Karzai had increasingly been placing his hopes on his attempts to reach a secret deal with the Taliban and Pakistan. Pakistan had repeatedly urged Karzai to oust Saleh from his position.

It was reported in 2010 that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Taliban "regarded Saleh as their fiercest opponent." He subsequently founded the Baseej-i Milli (National mobilization) and Green Trend as a pro-democracy and anti-Taliban movement.

Interview conducted by Zack Baddorf in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2012.

Quote:

"I think the U.S. policy towards Pakistan, especially in the last sixteen years, it has yielded to nothing. They couldn't stop Pakistan from a nuclear test. Failure one. Despite having assisted the Pakistani military since the early 50s they have not been able to stop that military crushing democracy every decade. Failure two. They were not able to convince them to stop supporting the Taliban. Failure three. As we are heading towards 2014, despite the piles and piles of information, mountains of information, with the intelligence community of the West, that Pakistan is a bad country supporting the Taliban, they are not still adopting a very clear policy of what to do with this country. I don't see where, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, if Pakistan has ever cooperated with the West. Pakistanis will say 'oh, we gave a few hundred al-Qaeda to Americans.' Let's put a price tag on those guys, how much each has cost the United States? Not only in terms of dollars, but in terms of other types of commitment." - Amrullah Saleh.